I cover mobile platforms, digital media and electronic publishing for Enders Analysis. I have worked in strategy and business development for NBC Universal, Channel 4 and Orange, and previously worked as a sell-side equity analyst covering European telecoms. I have an MA in History from Cambridge University. Follow me on twitter at benedictevans

20 Questions For The Mobile Industry In 2013

Smartphones now outsell PCs by more than 2 to 1, and it looks like the ‘Platform Wars’ may be almost over, with iOS and Android between them having around 90% market share. Yet one of the fascinating things about the industry right now is just how many companies are in serious trouble, and how many things are totally uncertain. We could easily see a major handset brand get bought or just disappear in the next 12 months, but every part of the industry faces fundamental and often existential questions. Here are 20.

Will Apple make a cheaper phone, moving below $600 new? How would it do it? (How) would it maintain segmentation? Would that be a $300 phone? A $100 phone?

Will China Mobile offer the iPhone to its 700m users (now that it is technically possible) or, like DoCoMo, refuse it?

Will Apple’s dominance of the high-end ($600+) phone market continue, or will Android/Windows Phone/RIM improve to the point they can take it on head-to-head?

Will Microsoft make its own phone? Will Windows Phone finally get any traction?

What happens to Nokia if Windows Phone gets no traction? Does Microsoft buy it?

What is the future of Nokia’s featurephone business? How big will Asha be?

How much longer will RIM survive? Who will buy the wreckage? Or will the ‘Do what Nokia did, but two years later’ strategy actually work?

What happens to the struggling Android OEMs, HTC, LG Mobile and Sony Mobile? Is there an M&A roll-up here?

What is Google going to do with the Motorola mobile business? Shut it down? Break it up? Let it carry on running into the ground? Or give up on the firewall?

Is Google’s whole approach to Android sustainable? Will it move more towards Nexus handsets, or does that remain just a low-volume showcase?

Does Google really care about the fragmentation, weak monetization and other issues with the Android ecosystem?

What is Google’s exit strategy from the ‘sell tablets at cost’ model? Will it drive the other OEMs out of the market? Would that matter?

Is Samsung’s leading position in Android sustainable? Does it depend on the company maintaining the current $13.7 bn (sic) run-rate marketing budget?

Will Samsung remain committed to Android, refocus on Windows Phone, fork Android or all of the above?

Will the Chinese move up-market and become major consumer players in the West?

Will the Chinese try to buy a non-Chinese OEM? RIM? HTC? Would they be allowed to?

What is the future of the subsidy model? Will the tentative moves in Spain and (in the USA) from T-Mobile last or spread? Will operators (and consumers) move decisively away from them? What would have to change to do that?

Will Amazon make a ‘Fire Phone’, forking Android in phones as it has in tablets, yet piggybacking on the existing app ecosystem? What would it gain?

Will Intel become relevant in mobile? Would it do a big acquisition? Panic and buy an OEM?

There are now at least a dozen social mobile social networks with over 100m users. How will they interact with Facebook and the mobile operators? Which will go global and which will get bought?

I have pretty considered opinions about most of these – but there are no clear answers to any of them. Massive amounts could change, quite easily, in the next year to two. In particular, it seems very clear that at least one of RIM, Nokia, LG Mobile, Sony Mobile and HTC will be bought, merged, disappear or radically change strategy. But my underlying point is that all of these questions are quite open – there are multiple plausible outcomes – and yet any of them has the potential radically to change the whole mobile environment.

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You didn’t make a single prediction. Why don’t you give it a try so someone can hold you accountable. I’ll make two with multiple parts. Apple will continue to be the best of the best in smartphones, tablets, and computers. Its sales and earnings will continue to grow.

Yet another misleading titled article (which caught my attention), no prediction, just some (unimportant) questions to be answered. China Mobile will at most contribute less than 0.1%-0.2% difference in iOS user base, remember those who favour iOS had already made their switches to other Telcos. Also there will be big loss in iOS share in the China due to openness of Android.

Come on, an ordinary guy like me can do better than this.

In 2013, in terms of market share, Android will continue dominating stronger and surpass 72%, iOS slides below 17%, while Windows Phone will pick up replacing BlackBerry at the 3rd spot, with 4%-5%, while the latter stays at 3%. The rest will be Linux variants.

I can even predict which mobile OS will vanish by 2015. (Of course this is hardly a prediction at all, most major reports more or less have the similar findings)

Today roughly 98% of the profit goes into the pockets of Apple and Samsung, but for sustainable competition at least one more player needs to advance. So my question for 2013 would be – will there be a solid number 3 actually making money, and who will that be? China and India can really make a difference on this..

From Keynes: “Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.”

So in that spirit, let me thank you for proposing a definition of our current tempest, and invite you to put a forecast probability next to each question — 50% if you have no opinion, 20% if you think it 4:1 odds against, etc. A year from now, we can assess both whether the issue actually amounted to anything, AND get a sense of our forecast accuracy, based perhaps on a probit fit.